July 4

July 4th is one of our favorite times of summer. Our village has a really good parade that we go to each year and one of our favorite teachers happens to live on the parade route and invites us to come watch it from her yard. It is always a good time! And as is our tradition, Aunt Domi and family come up to celebrate with us too!  We were excited to have Matthew be more of an active watcher of the parade this year.  Aunt Domi helped him get into the spirit of the parade.

I love this picture.  He really enjoyed waving to everyone.

Then he realized that candy was being thrown!!  Thanks to Juliette for sharing her bag with Matthew.

Juliette and Abbey with our good friend (back for the summer from Singapore).

Cousins!!

Cuties :)

I don't have a great picture of it, but Abbey drew an American Flag on her cheek with face paint.  It was really well done.  She loves being a big sister to Matthew.

So glad to see my good friend Rachael back from Singapore!

A huge thank you to Mrs. Balogh, our school's Assistant Principal and Ben and Abbey's former kindergarten teacher, who invited us to her house to watch the parade!

After the parade, we hung out with the Acuff's for a bit before they left to attend some July 4th activities with their friends.  Later that afternoon, we had some friends over to our house for a BBQ.  

Ben had a lot of fun catching up with Michael and Charlie after being apart for a year!

The boys!

Mr. O'Connor had a magic wand and amazingly, every time Juliette looked into it, a dollar magically appeared for her!  She is still talking about this so I hope Mr. O'Connor remembers his magic next time he comes back!

And what is a 4th of July BBQ without some sparklers?

Juliette was actually a little afraid of the sparkler, so she needed Daddy's assistance to really hold it.

You can see her face here - she is not a fan of this!

But she is a fan of hanging out with her buddy Danny (who she plans to marry someday - they have it all worked out to have Macaroni and Cheese and Buttered Noodles at the wedding!).

Then they all walked down to see the fireworks while I stayed at the house.  It had been a long day for Matthew, so I put him to bed and listened to the fireworks.  I could see a few from above the trees too!  The next day we introduced the kids to the Frontier Days Festival.  We have never gone before and have purposefully kept the kids unaware of it, but this year we decided to embrace it and I must admit, it was a lot of fun.  They were pretty excited!

It's a big carnival with all your typical carnival rides and games, but the kids had never been to a carnival before and they really enjoyed it!

So cute!

Matthew enjoyed this game where he got to pick out a duck to see if there was a prize on the bottom.  He actually wouldn't pick up the ducks, but did enjoy putting his hands in the water and pushing the ducks down as they went by.  Finally Ben had to help him actually pick one!

Matthew is so easy going.  He just goes along with whatever we are doing.  Give him a big iced lemonade and he is one happy baby!

Ferris Wheel!

And the kids each did this big jumping thing where you were attached to big bungee cords and bounced on trampolines.  It looked like a lot of fun!

Matthew waved to them as they jumped.

And they had a game where you could bounce a ball into a glass water bowl to win a fish.  Well we let each of the kids try it and Ben won 2 immediately and Juliette won 1.  Abbey didn't win any, so we paid for one more try (which is about 6 balls worth of trying) and then she went on to win 3 fish.  So, we added 6 goldfish to our family!  We warned the kids that they wouldn't last long so to not get too attached to the fish, but would you believe that I am currently writing this on the day before Thanksgiving and we still have 4 of these original 6 fish!  The fish were cheap to win by this game, but all the tanks, supplies, food, etc. that we have bought for these fish really added up!  Oh well, it has been fun for the kids.

Another great July 4th to add to our memories.  And I have a feeling that going to Frontier Days will now be part of our annual 4th of July Festivities - hopefully we won't come home with 6 fish every year though!